


desperate times

by dignify



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Rivals to Lovers, Slow Burn, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dignify/pseuds/dignify
Summary: Moira felt her own life slipping away gradually. A deep, dark sadness cast over her as the woman lying on her lap sucked in the few remaining breaths she had left.Perhaps Angela was closer to her heart than she was ever willing to accept.
Relationships: Moira O'Deorain/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	1. Evacuate

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there. 
> 
> I'm gonna be uploading this weekly. This is a pet project I have cause my therapist told me to get a hobby. Sex will be in later chapters.  
> Keep yourself safe! Read the tags :)
> 
> I love reading your comments! Don't be shy, put some more.

The evac was late. 

Blood flowed liberally through Moira’s tense fingers as she applied pressure. Nanite tech was only so advanced, could only do so much. She wasn’t a miracle worker, no. Moira was a geneticist first, a medical doctor second. Bullets came like torrential rain in the greens of Ireland. Three were too many, too much damage was being done too quickly. Bodies were strewn along the dusty battlefield, dirt was kicking up to mingle in the air, creating thick dust clouds that overshadowed everything beyond a few feet around her. The ape lept somewhere, she can’t help but wonder if he’s being stuffed and shipped off to a primatology exhibit. Reyes had followed his redneck of an adopted son into the heat of the firefight. As for the gargantuan walking shield, well, she hoped he hadn’t chosen this moment to retire.

_ I don’t believe I can do this alone, Angela. _

Angela Ziegler, call sign Mercy, was perhaps the most obnoxious creature to walk this earth. The young doctor was stubborn, always challenging Moira’s expertise. Yet, the prodigy was equally as bright. She carried naive joviality wherever she went. Truly, Angela had earned the title “sweetheart of Overwatch”. Genuine, kind, witty and quick on the draw, being several years Moira’s junior did not affect her inability to be intimidated by the geneticist. She was always several steps ahead, knew what Moira was thinking before it even arose as a consideration. Never had Moira met someone so brilliant, so confident in their own capabilities despite their youth. Moira was inspired by her. 

Now, that source of inspiration was dying before her very eyes. 

The spirit that made Angela’s skin glow golden evaporated, leaving a dim hue upon ashen skin. Bright blue eyes were fading into a lifeless gray. Her soft, gentle hands became more limp with each passing moment. Moira felt her own life slipping away gradually. A deep, dark sadness cast over her as the woman lying on her lap sucked in the few remaining breaths she had left. 

Perhaps Angela was closer to her heart than she was ever willing to accept. 

A loud crackling boomed into her earpiece. A raspy voice, too. “Moira,” it bellowed. “Reyes to O’Deorain.”

Moira’s soaked hand shook to press the button, but it managed. “O’Deorain, here. I’m losing her, Gabriel.”

“Fuck.” Gabriel, in all of his commanding professionalism, never took advantage of the chance to say an expletive. The familiarity tapered her racing heart, somewhat. “McCree and I are in the evac. What is your position?”

_ The evac. Finally.  _ Moira lifted her head slightly over the barricade protecting them from oncoming fire. Bullets were still flying. She ducked before one could catch her. The ringing of it had no mercy on her eardrums. “We’re trapped near the warehouse tunnel, right outside the entrance.”

“Got it.” Moira’s new favorite sound was the whipping of a chopper through a poor radio connection. “Winston is en route with a shield. We’ll be there shortly. Keep holding on O’Deorain. Help is on the way.”

Moira toggled a dispersion of the few nanites left in her reservoir. Angela jolted, talking a heftier breath than the dangerously shallow ones moments prior. 

Moira caressed a stray hair from Angela’s sweaty cheek, careful not to scratch her with a long talon. 

“You will make it, beloved. You must.”

___________________________________________________________________

“You will make it, beloved. You must.”

It was the last thing Angela heard before completely submitting to darkness. The delicacy of Moira’s voice gave Angela the comfort she needed to accept her fate. 

And then she woke. 

Never in Angela’s typical morbid fantasies - ones which came from being a doctor - did she ever believe she would be on the receiving end of emergency medical care. She felt as if a freight train was on her chest. The weight of her own body kept her flat against the bed. The faint sensation of cold fingertips caressed a sore spot on her abdomen. Blinking past the fluorescent light, she made out the blurry figure of a nurse dressing a gaping wound, saturated in coagulated blood and puss. 

_ Lovely.  _

The mission was supposed to be rather straightforward: infiltrate the Talon base, grab the superweapon, get out. Gabriel and Jack spent weeks painstakingly planning the operation. They secured safehouses, arranged evacuation procedures, confirmed communication with international spies, scheduled supply drops. It was all that was required for a seamless extraction. 

But it went terribly, horribly wrong from the get-go. 

There were so many of them. Talon’s troops were doing rounds in triple and quadruple squadrons. Snipers were mounted at every corner. Enforcers and assassins hugged all possible blind spots. Angela and Jesse, for their part, tried in earnest to convince Gabriel to retreat. Reinhardt was unusually solemn. His beady eyes roamed the area desperately trying to find an opening. Winston fiddled anxiously with his glasses as if he were too afraid to say whatever he was thinking. And Moira…

Moira didn’t care one way or the other. Moira never cared about anything or anyone other than herself. 

_ You will make it, beloved. You must _ . 

Beloved. 

Angela didn’t want to think about it. 

She attempted to move her head, but it was too heavy from the telltale grogginess of morphine. Instead, she shifted her eyes, catching glimpses of IVs, soaked bandages, the clinical ivory of the hospital gown. An oximeter was attached to her left forefinger. Ninety-two percent. Good. Angela took an extra breath as if she were avoiding a sneeze, only then noticing that there were tubes clamped into her nostrils. She choked, a fear buzzing through her body, and her throat constricted against an offensive line of plastic. 

Merely thinking about how close she was to death kick-started her heart. Angela began to inhale, faster and faster, whatever left of her stomach contracted painfully over and over again. She couldn’t stop it. 

_ Gunfire. Don’t know which way. Flying high in the sky. Loud, cracking explosions chasing her. Where are the shields? Reinhardt? Can’t think of that now, have to get to Jesse. They just keep coming. The flow, the blood, the red, it oozes. What is Moira saying? Is she screaming? I’m screaming. Heat. Heat. So fucking hot. From all around, but nowhere. The air gets cold while you’re falling.  _

Tears stream down her face. They roll off of her chin onto her gown, it’s soaked. How did that happen? Angela wretched while she cried. Get it out. It was in her. The heat was in her. Get it out get it out  _ get it out _ \- 

Someone was shaking her. Someone was holding her. It was too warm. She was too warm, like when the sun burned her and made her this. 

“You made it, angel. You made it out. I told you you would. Good job, Angela. Wonderful job.” 

Angela grabbed. Her fingers made purchase on a cloth of some kind. It was like her lab coat, but more fibrous. She stroked it as she sobbed and gagged and wailed. 

_ Moira.  _


	2. inhale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello yes hi the election was giving me anxiety but here's a super angsty chapter for you 
> 
> the conversation between ana and moira is, how do you say, tense. i have a hard time writing dialogue so this took me forever to do. but! i think it's pretty okay. 
> 
> people love angela. that's it that's the chapter.

Last time Jesse was this angry with one of his higher-ups, he shot him. Point blank. No hesitation or remorse. He watched as the other man bled out. He reveled in it because, let’s be honest, the fucker had it coming for a long time. Who better to make sure the swampy son of a bitch couldn’t fuck over anyone again? It takes one to know one, after all. 

This time was different. This time, his ire was directed at the man who yanked him from the trenches and gave him something to believe in. But it wasn’t this. 

It wasn’t Angela, the little lady that hadn’t ill will toward anyone, who made sure her team made it out of a warzone in one piece, who consistently chastised Jesse for using real rounds during training and took the whiskey from his room when he did; she wasn’t supposed to be laid up in a hospital bed seemingly a breath away from death. When the group saw that there were too many Talon goons they  _ hadn’t planned for _ prowling about the turkish warehouse, they should have high-tailed it immediately. But he saw Gabriel’s face, gruff and determined. The whisper-screaming of “we are severely outnumbered”, “there’s no way we’ll all make it out of this alive”, “it’s not worth it”, didn’t even reach the threshold of the captain’s eardrums. The commander’s eyes…Jesse thought they looked like the swirling of a whirlpool wanting nothing to consume. He’d almost gotten stuck in one of them before, during his brief time as a swashbuckler. There was no escaping that kind of natural rage. Not even for an angel. 

He hoped that the cushion of the guest chair wasn’t indicative of the hospital bed’s comfort. Angela would be leaving with sores, too, before all of this was over. Even in his softest pair of Wranglers, the leather of the chair wore on his hip bones. And not to mention the lack of lumbar support- 

Angela groaned, her brows furrowed in a look of deep pain. Since she had awoken about two days ago the doctors removed the feeding tube, but she was still having trouble breathing. Her blonde hair was matted and greasy which was so,  _ so _ unlike Angela. But when she looked over to him sitting in the unreasonably uncomfortable chair with dull eyes, Jesse couldn’t help but push through his melancholy to offer her a reassuring smile. “Mornin’, sleepy head.” His voice was barely above a whisper, overtly aware that anything louder could overwhelm her. 

“Good morning, Jesse.” Angela’s usually soft lilt was raspy from lack of use. Her chapped lips formed around the words as if she were learning them all over again, clumsy. “I have to admit-” a clicking intake of oxygen as she took a breath, “telling time is quite-”  _ click _ , “difficult-”  _ click _ , “when you are on-”  _ click _ , “bedrest.”

“Hey doc, take it easy.” A lob of sorrow grew in his chest like prickly vines climbing up an old building, threatening to tear from the threshold of his throat in a sob. Angela was like a sister to him. He should have been there to keep her safe. He should have been there to defend her. 

He failed. 

Jesse leaned forward, elbows on his knees and head angled as closely to Angela as he could muster from his position on the guest chair. He wanted so badly to sit on the end of her bed. To massage any discomfort from her body until she could get up and walk on her own. This wasn’t right.  _ It wasn’t right. _

His eyes shifted to the bouquet he’d left on the bedside table. “I didn’t know what flowers you like so I went by the seat of my ass. I hope you like sunflowers and lilies, though.” 

Angela’s eyes drug over to where Jesse was looking. They widened slightly as she took in the bright colors of the delicate petals, irises journeying along the soft shapes of them.  _ Click _ , as she took it as deep a breath that she could muster, as if trying to catch a waft of their scent. Angela’s cheekbones rose against her eyelids, closing them slightly in a smile. “They are lovely, Jesse.” _ Click. _ Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. Least I coulda done, really.” He leaned against the chair again, the impact of his back making a sullen  _ thump  _ against the faux leather. He didn’t deserve that smile. “I’m so sorry, Angie. This should have never happened. Reyes mighta been a fool for running in there like that, but I should have had your back. I could have protected you, and now you’re laid up here. And shit, I owe O’Deorain a drink, ‘cause she’s the only reason you got outta there alive, banged up though you are.” He glanced up enough to catch Angela’s grimace, but he hoped it was only because of the awkwardness or Moira’s name being mentioned, and not that she felt that he abandoned her when she needed him the most. For the latter, Jesse would never blame her. “I’m gonna make this right. I promise you that, Angie. I’m gonna do what I can to make sure that this never happens again. And if you can forgive me, that’s all I’m hoping for.” 

Her reply was as quick as Jesse suspected she could muster. “There is nothing to forgive.” 

_ Click. _

Five words. All it took was five words for the dam to break. Jesse’s tears rolled freely down his ashen cheeks. 

Reyes would pay for this. 

___________________________________________________________________

Moira couldn’t get anything done. 

The molecules gesticulated under the lens of the microscope. They were trying to tell her something, she presumed. A hypothesis was either proven or disproven as she watched them interact with one another, but it was hopeless. Her mind was elsewhere. 

_ Angela’s chest was rising and falling much too quickly. As uncontrollable as the sun shining or a hurricane crashing upon the shores of the coast, they were tearing apart everything that had been built up over the years. The younger woman clawed at her, sobbed into her lab coat as its white fibers caught hot, aching tears. Moira felt as helpless now as she did then, when the gunshot ripped through Angela’s abdomen, blood bursting bright red from her body like fireworks. Angela is falling again, now, and again Moira has caught her right on time enough to usher her through a daunting stage of healing. She opened and closed her mouth. She wasn’t speaking, but she could hear words coming from her mouth in a rush. “You made it, angel. You made it out. I told you you would. Good job, Angela. Wonderful job.” _

_ It was nonsense. Utterly and completely useless coos. Moira does not comfort. She dissects. She analyzes. She criticizes. She’s a scientist. She’s barely human.  _

_ “M-Moira…” Angela’s voice was so tiny, so delicate and fragile and on the verge of disintegration.  _

_ “Don’t speak, Angela.” Moira took to a subconscious rocking motion. Angela’s hyperventilating transformed into light hiccups with breaks in between. She was calming, at least for the moment. “You have nothing to fear any longer. You are safe.” _

_ They were like that for a few hours. Moira held Angela as the younger woman drifted to sleep, only letting go for the brief moments that the nurses had to come in to adjust her oxygen or remove the feeding tube. Moira tried to pull away a few times, but Angela’s grip on her was too tight and would pull her back, lying her head on Moira’s chest, all while soundly unconscious.  _

_ Moira tried not to feel anything. This was her coworker, the first friend that she’d had since university decades ago. Of course she would care deeply for her. Anything else would be inappropriate. And yet Moria could not help but caress the soft skin of Angela’s arm with her fingertips. Her eyes always drifted to the beautiful blonde eyelashes dusting rosy cheeks. And Angela’s lips, Lord help her, adorably pouty while she rested. All things that Moira had noticed before, of course, but never so closely, so intimately as this. She would never take advantage of the younger genius. These were simply considerations of which her heart tended to linger.  _

“Dr. O’Deorain.” 

The sound of Ana Amari snapped her to the present. The Egyptian captain stood before her every bit the authority that she wielded. She eyed Moira carefully. “You look like shit.”

Moira snorted indignantly, turning her chair towards her superior. “And you are old, “Silver Fox Amari” as my lab assistants like to call you.” 

Ana didn’t react, instead she grabbed the nearest chair and wheeled it around, sitting down with regal grace. “The mission didn’t go as planned, from what I’ve heard.” 

_ From what you’ve heard.  _ As if their top field medic wasn’t out of commission indefinitely with a hole blown into her stomach. “A dog’s breakfast, indeed.” Moira’s lips failed to hold back a scowl. She was complicit. Never said yea or nay to foolishly moving forward with the plan. It was something that she would have to live with for the rest of her days. 

“Jack and I are investigating. I’m here to ask you some questions. I thought that you would appreciate it being done on your own terms, however.” Ana crossed one leg over the other patiently as if waiting for Moira to demand she leave. It wouldn’t work, Moira had no such right. She was, after all, Ana’s subordinate. She now felt more like it than any moment previous. 

“Do I have a choice to decline?” She tried. 

“No.”

That was that then. 

Moira completely backed away from the microscope, removing her gloves and discarding them in the nearby waste bin. Her hip went ro rest on the lab bench, arms crossed protectively about her torso. “Ask away, Captain.”

“Let’s start at the beginning.” Ana leaned forward, her hands clasped together on her knees. “Where were you on the night that everything happened?”

Ah, formalities. “I was with the group. We were scouting the enemy atop a cliff, perhaps 500 meters away from the warehouse. Hundreds of Talon soldiers were littered on the grounds, and we could see that very clearly. It barely took binoculars.”

Ana hummed thoughtfully, but Moira knew it was only for empathy’s sake. The captain rarely played bad cop, after all. “In the weeks leading up to the mission, spies reported regular patrols. There were a similar number of guards per day for weeks. It must have been an utter surprise that the routine had changed, since the weapon had been there for just as long.” The inquiry was a loaded one, the question clear: how did you react to such a surge of security? The answer, simple. 

“It was,” Moira conceded, “yet, in this line of work aren’t we to expect the unexpected?”

“Touche.” Ana’s wry smile met her eyes. Moira had nothing but respect for the captain. The master sniper had seen her fair share of conflicts, of death. The two of them mixed like water and oil, or maybe gasoline and fire, but they understood one another. “I’m grateful you were there, otherwise Angela would have been lost.” 

Moira’s spine went ramrod straight, the tension from the past few days returning to her wiry frame in full force. She’s been hearing that a lot as of late, that she was Angela’s savior, her “angel” Oxton called her. If that were really true, she firmly believes that Angela wouldn’t be where she was in the first place. Reliant on machines to breathe. Moira remembers running in after the gurney when they arrived at the on site hospital in Gibraltar. Each step that she took seemed to be leading her closer towards Angela’s demise. No, she did not save Angela that day. Her limited reservoir of nanites did not save her, either. It was the ten hour surgery, the quickness of the nurses and doctors on staff. 

Dare she say, she was the one who put Angela in harm’s way. 

“Angela is like a daughter to me.” Ana’s scrutinizing gaze was cast out of the window overlooking the Gibraltar base’s campus. Usually, the hustle and bustle of the workday was more reminiscent of a lively university. Laughs and joy permeated the thick walls of her laboratory. Today, however, eyes were downcast, people rarely stopped to greet their compatriots, to have an excited conversation about new discoveries or opportunities to change the world. It reminded Moira of the stories her Ma and Da used to tell her, about how people would publicly mourn a beloved figure by a vow of silence. It’s the impact of the brilliant Dr. Ziegler. “My mind tends to fraternize with the idea that we easily could have been arranging her funeral. It’s nauseating.” 

“You are not alone in that, Captain Amari.” 

Their eyes met. Moira traced the dark lines of the udjat tattoo, creased in sympathy. For once since this happened, Moira felt  _ seen _ . 

“Gabriel. What did he do?”

Right, this was an interrogation. Moira rolled her shoulders, leaned her head back, and sighed. “He went in.”

Moira could feel the eye roll. “And the sky is blue. Moira, please do not be obtuse. I’m not in the mood.”

“I am not being obtuse, Amari.” Moira’s thin brow creased with frustration, and she began to lean more into her “r”s as her Irish accent became thicker, emotions flaring. “Reyes thrust himself in the middle of dozens of guards armed to the teeth. Jesse quickly followed suit. The ape lept to attack the snipers on the walls and Reinhardt charged in without a fucking care in the world. Angela and I lagged behind to pick up their mess and dress their wounds. The plan was abandoned for chaos, but it was not our call, it was Gabriel’s. We’re to follow orders, yes?” The volume of Moira’s voice was steady, but the intensity behind each syllable hissed between her gritted teeth. “Reinforcements showed up too late. By the time they came to help, Angela and I had been separated from the group. McCree was too busy up Reyes’s ass to notice that he was poorly positioned between too much firepower for us to reach him, but they kept moving. Angela tried anyways, though, because that’s her fucking job. The ape was god's know where doing gods know what. The crusader was backed into a corner. She goes in and helps her team without anyone but me to protect her, damn the consequence of being blown to bits, yeah? And I had to watch as she fell like God kicked her from the gates of heaven themselves.

And you know what’s fucking hilarious, Amari? It’s that Angela works herself tirelessly for this ungoverned paramilitary bullshit of an institution because she believes deep down in her naive little heart that she’s helping people. You don’t know that underneath her desk is a blanket that she keeps just in case she can only catch a wink of sleep at her desk before three of the deadlines  _ you  _ give her on the same  _ fucking day _ at the same _ fucking time _ are due. You have not had to watch as she cried over people she couldn’t save. People to whom you, Morrison and Reyes gave empty promises to bring home in one piece!” Moira’s feet decided to stalk closer and closer toward Ana with each jab. The Irishwoman was tired, was beside herself with worry and heartbreak and anger. She might have been a lowly scientist on Overwatch’s payroll, but her time was valuable as was her dignity. She would be damned before someone took that from her. She wouldn't, no, couldn’t stop now. 

“Does she know about your little rifle?” Ana’s eyes bulged wide as if they were aiming to leap out of their sockets. Her mouth opened and shut uselessly as if looking for an excuse that wasn’t there. “What am I saying? Of course she doesn’t. How could she suspect that the closest person that she’d ever had to a mother stole her research for the exact opposite of what Overwatch claims to do with it? What? Can’t say anything Amari? Don’t. Be. Obtuse!” 

They were nose to nose now. Moira’s tall, foreboding frame leering over Ana’s smaller one, but the captain was not afraid. Still sitting, Ana met Moira’s raging stare, having overcome the initial shock of Moira knowing a highly classified piece of information. The deeper Moira looked into the brown honey of the Egyptian woman’s irises, the more she could make out her own reflection in them. Disheveled would be a kind adjective, a hot-fucking-mess was much more appropriate. 

“I am not here to fight with you, Doctor. Merely to ask questions.” Ana was the first to look away from their competition of will, pushing the chair away from Moira by her heel. 

“I have been thinking,” Ana continued, “how could they have possibly known that you all were coming? Blackwatch reconnaissance teams are impeccable. Jack and Gabriel had been poring over the plans for months. This was supposed to be a win.”

Moira blinked. After the impassioned reply to Ana’s incredulous question, the captain continued on as if it never happened. “It’s a natural thing to stew over, is it not?” 

“Of course.” Ana’s legs untethered themselves from one another as she stood. Her clasped hands only parted briefly before returning together behind her back. She began to pace, fixating on the ground as the heels of her boots clacked dangerously against the concrete. It was this moment that Moira took all of her superior in. Ana wasn’t in her classic duster and beret. She donned a classic form-fitting button down, sleeves rolled to her elbows, tucked neatly into a pair of thin-legged jeans, Her hair was up in a bun, but stray black and gray strands were flying along the tips of her ears and nape of her neck. From the dark circles along the periphery of her lower lids, a different, more fatigued wrinkle than adorn the captain’s countenance, Moira could conclude that Ana hadn’t gotten sufficient rest since the incident. “What comes to mind when you think of it, Doctor?”

Moira hadn’t the slightest idea of what to say. Talon was spying on them in return? It was possible, but unlikely. From what she could gather, they were typically much too enamoured with the ideal to focus on preemptive measures. Whatever Talon had in numbers, Overwatch and Blackwatch had tenfold, when they were prepared for it. And from the years she’s spent as the head of genetics research, both organizations were nearly always prepared. Nearly. 

It seemed that the script had flipped, for the time being. 

“All I can hypothesize,” Moira began slowly “is that Talon is preparing for something much bigger than we anticipated. We happened upon them the day that it was initializing, and we interrupted it. We failed to procure the weapon. I could imagine that while it is still in their hands, we will all be in a bad way soon.” 

Ana stopped her pacing, digesting the thought as slowly and painfully as a horse-sized pill. It would not comfort any commanding officer to think that the entire operation was a series of mistakes. Yet, even as Moira did not feel as if she were a sympathetic person on most days, she could understand the gist of Ana’s turmoil. Guilt. Shame. Humiliation. Sorrow. Hopefully soon, not mourning. 

“Thank you, Dr. O’Deorain. This was...painful. But not unhelpful.”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t have been of better service.”

Ana made her way toward the exit. It was not a surprise to Moira when she stopped. What shocked Moira was her final say. 

“I want to believe you are a good woman, Moira.”

When the doors shut behind Ana, Moira let herself weep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr: d1gn1fy


	3. exhale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely didn't mean for this to go so long without getting an update. Life is crazy, huh? I hope that it was worth it!

_ Angela’s heel beat rhythmically on the dirt path, her worn canvas sneakers doing an excellent job of maintaining traction on the coarse surface of the forest floor. Her dirty, matted hair whipped about her round face as she cut though the warm air on her scooter. And, o the scooter’s credit, its rubber wheels kicked up the perfect amount of dust to send an apt “fuck you, losers!” ro the neighbor kids trailing behind her. Unsurprisingly, Olga was catching up. The other two, Elias and Igor, however, gave satisfyingly frustrated cries as they struggled to close the distance Angela widened with every push.  _

_ Summers in Switzerland were wonderfully temperate, richly coated in the vibrant, dense greens of trees and foliage. Angela was determined to enjoy this summer as fully as any other. Restrictions were high in the city proper. Tomorrow would mark the fifth month of lockdown; the curfews and occupancy limits were fully and unequivocally enforced. Perhaps not complete imbeciles, the government was trying to preserve as my lives as possible what with the Omnic War on their doorstep. Angela’s parents attempted to keep her attention away from the conflict, resulting in them buying this nifty scooter this past Hanukkah. “So long as you ride away from the city,  _ liebling _.” _

_ Her mother and father were kind people, busy people. Both doctors held in high renown, Angela rarely saw them outside of the occasional off-day or holidays. They sat her down last year on her eleventh birthday, she loathed to remember, to give her the news that they’d both be returning to work full time. The omnics had hit the surrounding nations pretty hard, and their help was invaluable to the relief efforts. Neither of them talked about the stress they were under, but Angela was smart enough to connect the dark circles under their eyes and the continuous coffee drip to the rising civilian casualties. She couldn’t hold back the sinking feeling of guilt from the pit of her stomach. If she hadn’t already finished her pre-collegiate homeschooling maybe one of them would have stayed behind.  _

_ Angela found herself alone more often than not. Kids her age were in public school. During the school year it was rare that she saw any of her friends, especially now that curfew was so early. Her father gifted her a journal to house her thoughts; she rarely used it save for the notes that she wrote her buddies. Elias was a poet, Angela was bad at them, but he seemed to enjoy her shoddy rhyme schemes and shallow imagery. Igor persuaded her that creating a new language was all the rage between comrades, so that’s how she wrote to him. And Olga...she had yet the courage to send her messages directly.  _

_ When all of them were free from the shackles of mandatory education, Angela made it a habit to drag the three of them from the safety of their relatively-bunkered homes to traipse about the forest, far away from a viable infiltration point. “There is no war among the chestnuts,” her father sternly scolded the officer that caught them the first time. Delighted, Angela took the statement as indirect permission to dip a bit further into the wood. Better to ask forgiveness.  _

_ Wheels against the ground echoed, and a rush of giddy adrenaline burst through her chest when Olga’s elbow bumped against her own. Finally, some competition. _

_ Olga, whose hair like licks of flame refused to taper in a braid or bun. Olga, whose green eyes were deep and white like the ponds they soaked their feet in on a warm day. And when the tadpoles tickled the bottoms of their toes, the melodious joy of Olga’s laugh played in her mind for days, oftentimes ushering her into peaceful sleep. The sound kept her company on the emptiest of nights.  _

_ “I’m going to beat you, Angela!” A challenge that was more than welcome. Angela’s bandage-riddled leg picked up speed, swinging as fast as the little thing could go. She may have been several inches shorter than her friends, but she prided herself on being “ferocious”, as Olga once described her.  _

_ Angela’s favorite thing about the other girl? She never underestimated Angela, nor Angela her. It was a mistake neither of them would make again; their twin scars sealed that pact.  _

_ The boys were different. Angela didn’t chance a loss by glancing back, but she knew they didn’t stand a chance. By all logic, the two bikers should be wiping the floor with the scooter users, but Elias had just gotten a new bike (and was learning to ride it) and Igor was much too nice to abandon his younger friend to win an impromptu race. The eldest of the three at the hearty age of fourteen, Igor was nowhere near as competitive as the other boys his age. He was barely as competitive as Angela’s pinky finger. For Elias’s part, he was more than happy just to run around with the big kids.  _

_ Angela fixed on the marked tree in the distance. Olga was fighting to gain the upper hand, their tires trading first and second position by mere centimeters. Olga’s scooter was a few years older than hers, but drove over large rocks and formidable bumps with ease. Angela wasn’t giving in, she had something to prove. A victory would show Olga that she could keep up. Angela needed this. Needed it because maybe this would give her the courage to close the small gap that separated their hands when they sat next to each other. Or maybe she could finally give the file of letters she bruised deep in her wardrobe that sloppily explained the whims of her heart.  _

_ Her imagination slipped into the old fantasy. Olga would spend the night at her place. They would get in their jammies and turn on some early 2000s punk rock (Olga loved Paramore). A dance party would ensue on the pillowtop of her bed, Angela would sing the melody and Olga would match with a perfect harmony. After hours of fun, they would flop down onto the bed, exhausted. Angela would be pulled into the sideways hug that Olga liked, and they would get to talking about boys. Angela never enjoyed the topic, but she would indulge Olga for as long as was necessary. That was, until she got up and dug through her dresser for the box of handwritten letters on cheap notebook paper with ridiculous flowery borders. Olga would read them, perhaps even laugh at how cheesy they were. When she finished, Olga would set them down, or hold them close to her chest like she did whenever something made her heart swell.  _

_ And then they would get closer, closer -  _

_ “Angela watch out!” _

_ ___________________________________________________________________ _

A deep exhalation of breath roused Angela from her troubled sleep. Her senses collided into her body like a freighter sloppily making impact with a fool crossing train tracks. Angela was extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. The hospital gown was shoved so fucking far up her asscrack that she started to feel a bit of remorse for wedding the neighborhood bully Karl when they were kids. However, Karl did push a child off the swing because he wanted a turn, causing her petty retaliation. 

Nevermind, fuck Karl. And fuck that bullshit trauma-dream. 

Good on the cocktail of morphine and nanites for tapering the pain in her abdomen, but damn her  _ stupid _ brain for bringing back  _ stupid _ memories that she fleshed out with her  _ stupid _ therapist ages ago. 

The faint scar on the inside of her wrist burned more than the hole in her stomach. Barely a moment went by before she was submerged in a flood of childhood memories that she was much too sober to fend off. Part of Angela wanted to reach for the nurse call button in hopes that they’d be fresh out of school and could be convinced to crank up the IV drip. Maybe mental fatigue would give way to malpractice. 

The increased beeping of the heart monitor and the thumping in her chest signalled to Angela that she was working herself up toward another panic attack. She and her therapist had come up with a grounding technique together when she was in college. It had been quite a sum of years since she used it last. Hopefully it still worked. She lifted her arms onto her chest, her thumb and forefinger of her left hand began applying pressure to the pads of the fingers on her right. Without the oxygen tubes clamped to her nosed, controlling her breathing come more autonomously than from the other evening when Moira- 

Breathe. 

Inhale. One, two, three, four, five. Hold 

Her name was Angela Ziegler. She was born on the 25th of June, 2037. 

Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. 

Today was the 25th of March, 2065. Huh, funny. 

Inhale. Count to five. Hold. 

She was hospitalized at the Overwatch Headquarters in Gibraltar. Her doctor’s name was T’Nia Miller, whom she met in medical school when they were both sixteen. 

Exhale. Count to seven. 

Angela did that for a few more minutes, satisfied when the thrumming of her heartbeat and the beeping monitor coalesced into a level tempo. 

“Ahem.”

“Shit!” Angela surged at the hips into a painful sitting position. Whipping her head to the origin of the sound, her sights rested on a nonchalant Moira O’Deorain, leaning against the doorframe. Her arms were crossed, the sleeves of her black button up bunched mid-forearm. One neatly pressed pant leg was crossed over the other and her tie hung loosely around her neck, the first few buttons of her shirt undone showing a peek of the pale skin of her collarbone. 

Angela’s surprised gaze met Moira’s composed one. Simultaneously crafted of tamed fire and cool ice, Moira’s eyes were enrapturing. Each one consumed Angela in drastically variable ways, pulling her apart until she felt thoroughly dissected and exposed for all the world to see. The morbid beauty of them cascaded down her features, to her razor sharp cheekbones and intricate frame of her angular jaw. She felt the familiar sensations of arousal and anger spike through her, cutting her down to her most basal desires. 

Yes, Moira was incredibly handsome. Yes, the lines of wanting to kill her or fuck her blurred quite often. And yes, mentioning any of this to Angela would end in her performing an autopsy to divert suspicion from herself. 

“I’m sorry, Angela,” Moira’s monotone lilt didn’t denote that she was  _ actually _ apologetic. “I was on my way out of the wing for the day. Oxton urged me to see you when I had a free moment.” The tall irishwoman bounced her shoulder off the door frame, unwinding her arms to close the door behind her.

Angela hadn’t noticed the sounds of medical personnel bustling around until it was completely muffled when the lock clicked into place. Moira stood over her bed, hands in her pockets, scanning Angela from head to toe. Angela squirmed, continuing to squeeze her fingertips to stave off renewed anxiety. Professionally, there was no love lost between the two. Angela considered Moira’s methods ethically gray and questionable at best. Moira, on the other hand, tended to chide Angela for her conservative approach to science; she believed Angela was holding herself and any discoveries she could make prisoner in a cage of convention. Any normal day, Angela could bite back, stand up for herself. Now, doing so either physically or metaphorically was impossible. Trauma shackled her. She  _ hated  _ it. 

Moira caught the anxious movement of Angela’s hands. The younger woman yanked them apart as if her hands blared red with mischief. A calm hum vibrated on Moira’s lips and smoothly turned on her heel away from Angela, striding toward the exit. Angela hadn’t the time to chastise Moira on her audacity to barge in, strip her bare with a searing look, and leave before the piercing fluorescent overhead light faded to a warm dimness. Moira faced Angela, body open, with a long finger on the curve of the knob beside the door. “The lights must be unbearable. I hope you did not mind that I took liberty in turning them down?”

Angela would have bet any amount of money that if Lena were to burst into the room with a camera at the ready, the photo of this exact moment would be comparable to  _ Der Schrei dur Natur,  _ or the slack-jawed face of a prepubescent teen boy who just saw his first boob. Flabbergasted didn’t cover it. Not to mention the blackmail material that Lena would use it for. 

Their working relationship wasn’t cold per se. Most banter consisted of light teasing or stoney matter-of-facts, especially when sharing their findings. There were times when Angela arrived at her office in the morning with her ergonomic desk chair missing. She would go directly to Moira’s office to find her “colleague” propping her absurdly long legs on the cushion, smiling cheekily at Angela’s annoyance. Angela revelled in the heat of Moira’s frustration when she couldn’t find her favorite teas shelved in the breakroom. She had to admit, Earl Grey paired well with revenge. 

It never occurred to her that she would ever describe the typically apathetic geneticist as  _ considerate _ . 

“N-no. Not at all. Thank you.” A sophisticated response on Angela’s part. It took a dip in the bed for her to notice that Moira moved away from the light knob. Now very much in her space, the ginger’s long hand slipped from the pocket of her slacks. The warmth of her touch spread through Angela as soon as the hand made contact with her shoulder, the soft pressure a clear encouragement to lie back. Her body was much too over sensitive to resist, but its concession to the silent command was more worrying than the pain in her stomach. Her hiss didn’t go unnoticed. Ginger eyebrows knit with concern, Moria zeroed in on the area of the wound covered though it was. Her Irish accent is thick but soft. “You will hurt yourself if you continue moving so carelessly.” A comment said purposefully, leaving no room for mingling or slurring. She was careful and calculated in every facet of her being, but Angela allowed herself, just this once, to believe that Moira held a fraction of care for her. 

When Moira removed her hand, she immediately longed for the warmth of it, leaving behind an unfamiliar tingling sensation, as if she were caressed by something foreign and new. Her soul screamed for it, creaved it with a hunger that Angela couldn’t describe. She wanted more. 

Angela had been touched more times in the last week than she had in years. Doctors and nurses pressing and prodding with cold hands and colder metal. Latex gloves dragged down her skin with clinical precision, reminding her that she was a patient. Thousands of times Angela was the one analyzing conditions, measuring likeness and mending wounds. But being the subject had an abject feeling of loneliness she found impossible to ignore. 

Moira’s touch accomplished something strange. It wasn’t necessary, it gave her a sense of autonomy; she wasn’t to lie back and let another heal at their disclosure. There was no end goal, really. Moira touched her because she wanted to, and Angela reciprocated that desire. 

And then, Moira hooked finger on the lining of the hospital blanket. She tugged at it insistently, yet without stripping the cloth. It hit Angela full on in her heart - Moira was asking to see. Wordlessly, Angela nodded, shimmying into a more comfortable position to allow full access. The blanket was divested swiftly, Moira rucked up the hospital gown under Angela’s chest with little fanfare. The pads of her long fingers skimmed along the puckered red line of flesh around the square bandage pasted on the wound’s perimeter. 

No matter how hard she tried - albeit not too hard - Angela couldn’t tear her attention away from the delicate procedure of Moira peeling the gauze, exposing the raw lesion to the air. This was the first time Angela had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the hole, given that she had been in and out of consciousness when nurses changed the dressing. About the size of a softball, it was starting to heal around the edges, but the center was an angry red, with a film of yellow puss glazed over it. All in all, it should look a lot worse. Moira concurred. 

“Your work on nanite technology is something to be revered. The abrasion is several weeks ahead of schedule in terms of healing.”

“Yes, it was the purpose of the research, after all,” Angela quipped with a tinge of humor in her voice. Hearing Moira chuckle low in her chest was curiously gratifying. 

“Indeed.” The laughter fizzled in mere seconds, replaced by a dark cloud. Blue-red eyes looked up, lassoing in Angela’s undivided attention. There was an imploring tension that brewed in them, Angela would describe them as...sadness. 

“Angela, you need to know that I-”

_ Knock knock.  _

Both of them were startled out of their stupor, but Angela was the only one to experience significant repercussions. The sudden movement of shock sent a dull shock through her body, verbalizing itself with a quaint “Fuck!” 

Dr. T’Nia Miller walked into a scene of Moira scrambling as far away from Angela as possible. Her long limbs worked against her, catapulting her off of the edge of the bed without so much as an arm to break her fall. Angela, on the other hand, had her eyes squeezed tight and her lips curled in a snarl. The groans of pain bounced off the walls like a mother in labor. 

In a word, they looked ridiculous. 

“I’m sorry if I interrupted something, Dr. O’Deorain. I was going to redress Angela’s wound, but it seems that you have everything taken care of.” Dr. Miller gave the collapsed woman a glowing smile. 

Angela didn’t see so much as hear Moira stand and walk toward the exit. “I was here on request. I was just leaving.” And with a brusque shut of the door, Moira was gone. 

___________________________________________________________________

Smoke and cold wind filtered through the cigarette to her lungs. 

Moira sat in her car in the parking lot of the hospital. It may have been rude to have a puff while she was at a medical facility, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

She just knew that she was  _ fucked _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stream games! 
> 
> Follow me on Twitch: twitch.tv/myraculous_


End file.
